With its story of pit closures and brass bands wrapped up in pathos and northern humour, the 1996 film Brassed Off thrust the village of Grimethorpe and the nearby town of Barnsley into the international spotlight - and exactly 30 years after its release, its lasting impact can still be felt in the area.

Grimethorpe Colliery shut in 1993 and just three years later the village where it had stood at its heart was immortalised in Brassed Off as Grimley.

The Bafta-nominated film, starring Ewan McGregor, Sue Johnston, Pete Postlethwaite and Tara Fitzgerald, portrayed the fictional village's struggle to survive against the backdrop of mine closures across South Yorkshire.

"Grimethorpe was the most industrialised village in Europe at that time and when the colliery closed, it became the poorest village in Europe," explains Johnny Wood.

"Brassed Off tells you about the devastation it caused within the community."

If there is one person who knows about the impact of pit closures on the area, it is Johnny.

He worked at Grimethorpe Colliery and now, at the age of 68, he is chairman of Grimethorpe Miners Memorial and Reunion, an annual gathering of 300 ex-miners from the former pit.

As he stands by a marble memorial outside St Luke's Church in Grimethorpe, an unexpected cloudburst interrupts the sunny autumn day and briefly lashes it with rain. It is perhaps symbolic of a community which has weathered plenty of storms.

Over the road is Grimethorpe Working Men's Club where a large glass cabinet displays a National Union of Mineworkers flag and a framed poster listing all the pits which closed down in the 1980s and 90s.

"I would suggest everybody watches that film because it is historical and educational," Johnny says.

"This community wouldn't have existed without the collieries, and we have a memorial with 163 miners' names who paid the ultimate price."

Johnny recounts that two of the film's stars, Postlethwaite and Johnston, were both politically active, which endeared them to the local community during the filming of Brassed Off.

"Sue Johnston actually campaigned for Grimethorpe Colliery to stay open, so she had respect from people here without a shadow of a doubt," he recounts.

"When the media came, all they asked about was the band. There was no mention of what was going to happen with the 2,000 jobs since the colliery closed.

"I think Pete probably picked up on that when he was interviewed as he had sat and spoken with miners.

"His speech in the film, which I understand he wrote himself, was about the power of what community is all about."

"People come first," says Johnny.

"We had a world famous band, which the village is very proud of, but it wasn't about trophies. That community spirit, which in my opinion is second to none, has kept this village going."

Johnny gives a tour of locations featured in the film. Some, like The Grimethorpe Hotel, which on screen was The Collier's Arms, have been demolished, and it is difficult to even reach the former colliery, which is now an industrial estate.

But while buildings may have come and gone, Johnny says community spirit is still strong.

Standing outside a baker's shop, which doubled up as a fish and chip shop in the film, and looking at the empty plot where the Grimethorpe Hotel once stood, he says: "We used to have six pubs, sports teams and a welfare club that belonged to the men that worked at the colliery.

"The strength of people built this community back up. They put pressure on ministers, MPs and councillors - and good on them for doing that.

"If there's somebody having problems, people are there, they are behind you. They are second to none, brilliant people."

Seven miles away in Barnsley town centre, Steve Fothergill sits in an office overlooking the town hall.

Labour ruled Barnsley Council for 50 years before Reform UK took control in the May local elections.

Steve is lead author of the State of the Coalfields 2024 report and an expert on former mining communities.

Brassed Off portrayed the trauma of the job losses which affected the area, and Steve has spent his career studying the after-effects of an entire industry disappearing.

"What everybody expected when the pits closed is that unemployment would go through the roof," he says.

"It didn't, or at least recorded official unemployment didn't, because a lot of the miners dropped completely out of the labour market.

"Some of them took early retirement, but a great many went on to what was then incapacity benefit with their health problems.

"The redundant miners could just about muddle through if they were in their 50s, picking up their pension early and with some benefits.

"But it created a problem for the generation behind them because there weren't any jobs for the younger people coming through."

Steve says that became "the problem we have all had to tackle since the pits shut".

"The challenge over the last 30 years has been to plug that gap in the labour market."

Steve remembers a conversation with then Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who was also secretary of state for environment, transport and the regions.

"Brassed Off was never intended to be a political tool, but it did have a big impact because John Prescott went to see it," Steve says.

"He came out of the cinema thinking, oh my goodness, somebody should do something about the problem in these former coalfields. Then he realised that somebody was him."

Steve says Prescott's realisation "led to all sorts of good things happening".

"He established the Coalfields Taskforce, which I was involved in, and that led to a massive expansion in the programme of colliery site reclamation which allowed new businesses to come on to some of those former colliery sites.

"He also established the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, which continues to do good work in the former mining areas.

"So, Brassed Off has had a really important long-term and positive impact."

According to the State of the Coalfields report, former mining areas have "moved on" since the job losses of the 1980s and 90s, and there has been substantial progress in new job creation.

But it adds that "in an era of international migration, the full benefits of job growth have not always filtered through to local residents".

"Conventional mass unemployment may have faded into the past, but worklessness and dependency on welfare benefits remains widespread," the report states.

Steve has the same pit closure poster on his wall as the one in Grimethorpe Working Men's Club.

"Even though we've grown jobs in the former coalfields, there are still very substantial problems," Steve explains.

"We have large numbers of people still out of work on benefits, we have poor health, and wages are not good in some of these new jobs.

"You have a situation where there has been job growth, but there still is quite a high proportion of people out of work on benefits and a lot of people getting by on low incomes.

"Really, the coalfields are still lagging quite a way behind the more prosperous parts of the country."

Brassed Off and pit closures may be a generation or more away now, but young people in Barnsley and the surrounding communities still have a strong connection with brass bands.

Alex Francis, music service manager for Barnsley Council and conductor of the Barnsley Metropolitan Band based at the Civic theatre, says miners once played for both relaxation and entertainment.

"It was something deep-rooted and it brought people together like a sport. There was real pride in the colliery that you were part of," Alex says.

"Brass bands are a strange musical genre in that they compete against each other. So, bringing trophies back to your village in the name of the band was something of great pride.

"Once the pits closed, some bands were sadly lost, but many bands survived and there is still a really active network of brass bands to the present day.

"Some of them are under different names instead of their original colliery names, but there are a lot of bands out there still making music and bringing people together."

Yorkshire is certainly synonymous with brass bands, many of them award-winning, and Brassed Off cemented that image in people's minds.

"A big part of our past is the music people played years ago such as hymn tunes and marches - and, of course, music from Brassed Off as it's famous," says Alex.

"We still perform that for audiences, and even if people don't really know much about brass bands, they will recognise the soundtrack from the film.

"We do a big outdoor performance called Brassed On every summer and when people hear William Tell or the March of the Cobblers, it really pulls them together. It's a special moment."

"A lot of grandparents have played brass music," Alex adds.

"It's good for the soul, as they say, so there's a real interest and support from families and they really want their children to carry on that tradition.

"We're really proud of how many young people are performing with brass bands and we really want to keep that tradition going.

"We have a whole programme of music in schools and instruments like the cornet, the tenor horn and the euphonium are really popular in our area.

"Some of these instruments people wouldn't have known about unless they watched Brassed Off. They certainly know what a flugelhorn is from that film."

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